By Name,
by g21lto
Summary: Ginny and Voldemort have more in common than most people know or want to know. Question: when it comes right down to it, which one of them has bested the other?
1. Precipice

Disclaimer: nothing in the world of Harry Potter belongs to me. g21lto claims nothing but only uses it for her personal pleasure! No money is involved.

Description: Few seem to want to ask her The Question…but Ginny's been preparing her answer nonetheless. Tom, and how he changed her.

* * *

You're asking me why. Why. Funny, why nobody's ever asked me that before. It's got to be intensely puzzling from the outside…hah.

Why did I map out my soul for a complete stranger? Fall into that stranger's trap, Petrify a dozen people, and end up in the Chamber of Secrets? About to die until two twelve-year-old boys rescued me? That's an awfully big "why" to go unanswered – I can tell you all about _that_.

But no – let's back up for a minute. Why's not what you want to know. What you really want to know is more specific. You want to know the choice I made, the conscious choice that made me…well, that made me do something that fucking _stupid_. You want the instant when I toppled forward, that moment in time where I could have said "no" where I said yes or "yes" where I said no, and the whole fiasco my first year wouldn't have happened. It might as well be "why," but it's undeniably different.

Does that about cover it?

– No, I'm not angry. Nobody's ever asked me that before. They're probably afraid of offending me, or making me relive it, or probably they're afraid of the answer.

– Why would they be afraid of the answer? Well, it's rather obvious, isn't it? As long as they don't know, I'm the silly girl who wrote to a diary I shouldn't have, who trusted the untrustworthy boy, who said "yes" where I should have said no. If they don't ask, then I'm that girl. And if they do ask, then most likely they'll hear what they think they'll hear, which is what they want to hear. But there's always a chance they won't. I know it. They know it. So as long as I'm the silly eleven-year-old, the naïve little girl, then everything's fine. I know it. They know it. As I imagine sometimes, they know I know they know it.

It's convenient for everyone, the why replaced by the what, and the what remaining an unknown.

– Yeah, I've thought about this a lot. An awful lot, actually. And the strangest thing of all is that I know exactly what I want to say. I can see it in front of me, but it's kind of like a smoke-figure that dissolves whenever I try to touch it. I can't even catch hold of it, but I can still, faintly, perceive it.

– Well, since you started out asking about the Chamber of Secrets, I guess I can start talking there. Why did I follow Tom into the Chamber of Secrets?

* * *

Come with me, he says. He never says where.

I'm sitting on my bed, in my dormitory, studying alone. The open window's letting in that Hogwarts springtime smell of cut grass and mountain rain. All very light and airy, a clear afternoon for an equally clear morning. Then there's a boy at the door, all of a sudden. He's just there.

"Hullo," he then says.

"Hullo," I then answer. "Who are you?"

"I think you know," he says. His words are lighthearted, but they have an undercurrent of danger that I can't help but pick up on. He knows I sense it. I know he knows (and, he knows I know he knows). It's really quite funny when I look back. He's pretending to be the kind, charming boy you can find on any page of the old leather diary I wrote to him in, but there's practically no need.

And he knows it.

"Hullo, Tom."

"Ginny." He winks at me then. "Took you long enough."

"I've known who you were since you walked into the room," I counter, not completely lying.

A little smile and Tom says, "I knew you would," and he's in earnest.

I had never seen him before this – I had only written to him. You would say I barely knew him, but I would counter. Come with me, he says. But to where, he never answers.

"Homework?" he asks. He's seen the books spread out on my comforter.

"Yeah," I say. "Transfiguration. Our exams are coming up." I hold up the thickest book to show him, and yes, he comes into the room. Tom Riddle, right here in my dormitory, the spirit of mere ink and paper. Here he is, physical. Tangible. As if to illustrate this change, he sits down on the bed next to me.

"I remember this lesson," he says. His eyes are deepest brown, and when they meet mine they do feel familiar. "Here's a secret – you'll never need it for anything else."

"Ever?" I ask, mostly just to bring him into eye contact again.

"Ever. Ignore what McGonagall says, she just wants you to learn the theory of the theory. Very useful once you get into the transfiguration higher levels. For now, stick with the need-to-knows."

"Tell me about the transfiguration theory," I say, and close the book with (and the motives get clouded, swirled together, here) what could have been a satisfying _thump_.

"You don't need to know," he says, but with a half-smile that says he knew I would want to know.

"But I want to know," I answer. I can't help but imagine I wore the same half-smile. A little self-mocking, a little genuine, but aimed toward Tom full-bright nonetheless.

"Well, aren't we the devoted scholar?" says Tom with a laugh, and he's called it. "Hermione has competition."

Red heat in my face, and biting my lip, but still sitting there next to Tom. No, it wasn't a blush. A blush is less self-conscious. Still sitting there next to Tom, if you don't find that too strange.

"Am I right?" he asks, though he doesn't need to.

"Of course," I say. "Hermione. Ginny. Same level. Obviously."

Tom laughs, but the sound is affectionate. He cocks his head towards me. "So self-mocking. Am I mocking you, Gin?"

"No, you're not," I say. And it's true.

"Then what am I doing?"

"You're saying what I was thinking – what I didn't even _know_ I was thinking. And my reactions. And you're able to tie together…" I trail off, self-conscious.

"And I'm able to tie together…what?" he prompts. He's beginning to sound like a teacher, prodding me this direction and that toward a conclusion. Leading me to the thoughts he desires. It doesn't occur to me to be frightened of his ability.

"You don't need to defend yourself to me," says Tom.

"What do you mean?"

"I know you know what I mean, Gin. So I'll ignore that question. But you've built up barriers, Ginny, barriers that keep you locked up and away from everything – needlessly, I might add."

"You know me better than anyone," I say defiantly.

"Feel free to whip out the clichés," says Tom belatedly. But he adds, "And I'm not being sarcastic. You can't surprise me, so don't try to dress things up."

"But clichés are so empty." I don't even know what I'm arguing here.

"Are they?"

"So impersonal."

"So make them personal. So, Gin, what did you want to know?"

I try to remember, though my brain seems to have trouble working through the past few minutes.

"Transfiguration theory." Nice dodge, Ginny.

"What did I say?" The arch of an eyebrow, almost familiar from his written-out personality.

"Fine." I play with a strand of my hair, trying to make it catch flame in the light like it normally does. Mostly to waste time. "I _do_ want to know about it, though." Do I? I can't remember, and all I know is that Tom is in one of his wise teacher phases again.

Tom laughs again. "Alright. I'll just let that last bit go."

He can let it go because he knows me, knows my motivations, knows what I am thinking at the exact time that _I _know (and sometimes before), and there is no need to talk the whole labyrinth of Ginny Weasley mind-games out. I can let him go on because, for one, I know _he_ knows. I trust him to understand, to be affectionate.

Come with me, he says. Two hands offered, arms wide. He never says where to.

"So forget transfiguration," I say after a few moments of silence. I drop a strand of dull hair to look back at Tom.

"And again I repeat," says Tom, though he doesn't repeat out loud what he was referring to. Close as we are, his mocking, though mild, the little turn of frivolity in his mouth when he talks to me this way chafes against my pride.

I really hate it sometimes when Tom is in one of his wise teacher phases. Then again I like him too much to call him on it.

"Don't treat me like a child," I settle on. Then _I_ laugh with the same frivolity. "No need to call that one out."

"I'm well aware," he says. "I'm not treating you like a child, Ginny – I'm treating you like someone who knows you."

"You laugh at me."

"You laugh at yourself – come on now. I love you, Ginny, those little corners of your personality that come out when you talk. Strengths and vulnerabilities. I love knowing them, and I can't help but call them out. To know them better. To let you know them."

Well, when he puts it like _that_.

A few more moments of silence ensue. The sunlight outside has faded, looking more like the kind of cloudy skies you get all autumn and winter around here. Tom is sitting still, preternaturally still, on the foot of my bed. Fingers splayed out on the comforter. He sees me looking at him.

"What is it?" he then asks.

"If I had a voice in the back of my head," I then say, and I'm not so sure _why_ I said it, "it would sound like you."

"I know," says Tom. He gives me what is both a knowing and a know-it-all look. "_I'm_ the voice in the back of your head."

"I really think you are, sometimes," I say, peeved now.

"Anger as a distraction – good call."

"How about being a prick as a distraction?"

"Dodging the issue. Another classic. Don't you see, Ginny, your mind is a labyrinth, a wonderful labyrinth that even _you_ haven't mapped out yet."

"And you're going to do it?"

"I'm nearly finished."

I look at him for a moment.

You have to understand I'm not angry with him during this conversation. Or it's not actual anger, at least. I'm angry in the way I would be angry with myself for doing something silly. He's the one who supplies that angry voice, that _oh no, Ginny, what have you done?_ after a faux pas that causes the real irritation of the faux pas itself. If you could just get rid of that voice you would be happy, but also you wouldn't. There's something satisfying about the voice. The voice in itself becomes part of who you are.

Yes, I'm assigning praise to Tom Riddle. It's how I felt at the time. And it was really beautiful the way he could look into my words and know exactly what I meant, even though what I _said_ might be totally different.

I look at him for a while.

"So, Ginny, it seems we've got your studying wrapped up," says Tom after a few minutes. "Unless you've any more exams to cram for?" He winks. "You know you'll do well. You're a good student. Don't doubt it." I roll my eyes, flush again, look down at the bedspread. "No, you are," he says. He lifts my chin with his fingers (his fingers that are warm and real and actually there). I'm looking into his eyes, but not by my own design. "Here's another of your little corners, Gin – you doubt yourself. And yet you realize your potential, even if your own mind won't let you see it as a possibility. There's some part of you struggling to let you know. So you have these thoughts – _I can be a better student than Hermione, I can beat Fred and George at Quidditch, I can be a better friend to Harry than Ron _– but once you've thought them, thought the truth, you have to cover them up with embarrassment. Tell me it's not true, Ginny." I'm looking into his eyes, so dark and so there and looking right back at me.

"It _is_ true, Ginny," says Tom. So dark, so real, so there. My mouth won't move to form the words. I can only look at him. I try to look away, try to pry my gaze away but no, he knows me, he won't let it go and he _shouldn't_, and he's determined towards confrontation.

"Tell me, Ginny," says Tom. "Tell me."

Wind on the eardrums. Cold and heat, both in my face, both at the same time. Wind.

"Tell me, Ginny."

"I am."


	2. Treading the Edge

Looking back on those days, you have to give me some credit. I wasn't stupid at eleven.

– Go on. No, seriously. You're looking very awkward all of a sudden. Don't know whether to laugh or to feel ashamed on my behalf? Go ahead and laugh, or go ahead and feel ashamed. It's got to be better than standing there uncomfortable like that.

I know how ridiculous it sounds when I defend myself, when I defend my eleven-year-old mistakes, when I say I wasn't stupid. I'm not claiming to have _not_ made mistakes, I'm not claiming that I wasn't naïve, or foolish even. I would use the term "_silly_." And yes, I know I'm trivializing too much, look what could have happened, people could have died, someone died before, on and on and around and around until I could have ended the world with my little diary and my quill pen. It was dangerous, and it, the _action_, was stupid, whatever "actions" it involved. But I didn't end the world and no permanent harm was done, and frankly I'd rather not talk about that.

– Well, sure, I'm being easy on myself. Would you rather I blamed myself for calamities that never happened? – I've done it before, you know. I was dumb. Just forget about it. No, don't leave. I'll still talk, if you still want to hear. Where was I?...

Looking back on those days, you have to give me some credit. I wasn't stupid at eleven. I was devoted to Tom Riddle. I had come to know him so well – which means that I felt _he_ knew _me_ so well – that I considered him my closest friend, even though we'd never met face to face. But my doubts about him were accurate, and I knew, for the last month or so of school, that he was something sinister. I wasn't sure exactly what he was – but something dangerous.

The possessions I don't recall, because my mind formed no memories of them at the time. I first knew there was something wrong with me when, partway through the autumn, I began losing my bearings – and my memories. Waking up in odd corners of the castle I hadn't even known existed, waking up with strange bits of paint, dust, _feathers_, down the front of my robes – I didn't know what to think of it, except for the general and unhelpful comment that _this was really bad_. I guess for the first few weeks or so, it was almost funny. It was my secret problem.

– yes, of _course_ I knew that was silly. I knew this was a major problem. But haven't _you_ ever wished for a special disaster that affects only you? Your own secret problem that you must wrangle with, and about which you can't speak to anyone? It even became shameful in a few weeks – same thing. I didn't even tell Tom the first few times I woke up, dazed, as if from a long nap, beneath a flight of dungeon stairs, perhaps, and perhaps with my robes frayed.

It was my tragic mental illness. Then it was my tragic and shameful mental illness. Finally when it became my tragic and frightening mental illness I told Tom about it. For help. For sorting out what was happening to my mind. He talked to me, comforted me, told me I was probably fine. Told me as long as I never woke up with a can of turpentine, or muttering a firestarting spell, he'd still talk to me. Otherwise he'd be too afraid. I laughed and assured him this had never happened.

It didn't cross my mind at all, at first, to suspect that Tom was remotely involved. A mental block, but surely an understandable one. Later, after I became suspicious, I stopped writing for long periods of time. When I came back to the diary, after days of absence, Tom was always so kind. So understanding. Asking me to write more often, but not pushing. Coming out with ever more insightful comments on my behavior, my moods, on my personality in general. Making me feel so good about myself, so blessed to have such a friend. Surely Tom Riddle could not be doing this to me, taking my sanity and erasing my memory.

Surely! Well, come on – he _was_ my best friend at the time.

Once, I threw the diary away. I flushed it down a toilet – didn't work – but I threw Tom Riddle out of my life. It was a horrible thing to do, as I look back, a horrible thing to throw my friend away where he would be rotted with the sewage and would most likely never be found – written to – ever again. Then again, I knew by that point that he was sinister.

The central paradox to those last days with the diary – I _knew_ he was sinister, yet I wrote to him more and more. An orgy of diary-keeping, the equivalent of all-night conversations with your friend, curled up in the dark, not willing to go to sleep just yet. And he was so kind. And everything he said was so true. And he was so real, I could almost imagine him in front of me. Until one day he actually appeared in front of me. The boy, sinister, friendly, perceptive, and dangerous, all in one.

It was actually quite exciting.

* * *

"Tell me, Ginny," says Tom. Rushing wind over my eardrums, a burning in my chest; Tom's eyes are magnets, but repelling magnets.

He tilts my chin up further, so that I must look into his eyes. His dark eyes, they're repelling my gaze and attracting it at the same time, like the forbidden words he pulls me to. Attract, repel. Warm, cold.

"Say it, Ginny," he says, and if I am not crazy then he is pleading and scolding at once, at the same time pulling my sympathies, my feel-better-Tom thoughts toward him and repelling my sensitive underbelly that he chafes against so often. Magnets, rushing wind, acid to the heart. Maybe this is what conscious rebellion feels like.

"I am," I say.

Stop. Nothing. The calm is unbelievable.

He hesitates a few seconds, considering me, pulling me in with his eyes that are now only attracting. I look into them, gauging them. Warm, but cold – I'm not sure at the time what that means. The facts don't really register, if they're supposed to register anything at all.

Tom's eyes take on the shade of decision. He asks, "You are what, Ginny?"

And I have just begun breathing calmly, just lost the flush, just stopped tasting bitterness in the back of my mouth. So swiftly, his eyes become repelling magnets again, so swiftly I really can't believe that it's happening, or how swiftly I can change mindsets – he is playing with me, now.

"I said it, Tom."

"You're apologetic. Don't be apologetic. You know you didn't say what I wanted."

"I said…"

"_No_, Ginny. What you said was 'I am.' What you said was nothing contained in something. What you said is what most people call _bullshit_." He strokes the underside of my chin again, so tender even while he is so demanding. I can almost imagine myself as a cat being petted.

"I only want the truth," says Tom.

Rushing wind, acid in my heart, burning in my chest, opening my mouth and trying to speak but it is impossible, the words are like a magnet repelling my brain and I cannot speak. I can only look at Tom and silently beg for understanding. He knows me.

"I know you, Ginny," says Tom, dark eyes warm and cold at once, "and that's why I'm not letting you go. You have to say it, Ginny. Because until you say it out loud your brain's not going to allow the thought to come out." Tom says this and his words cut like a pair of fangs through the rushing wind; through the burning and the lightness and the coldness they strike at my heart. Because I know that they are true.

And the magnetic repulsion, my brain shying away from the words – no I can't but yes I must – my eyes try to fasten on the thought and they find only dark wells of cold and heat. My mind tries to fasten on the words but they are like a phantom I am unable to grasp.

"Tell me the truth, Gin." Final encouragement from Tom.

"I am better," I say. The cold retreats and the heat comes, rushing in waves, and then the cold rushes in rivulets down my fingers and toes. "Tom – I am better than them."

"Are you really?" he asks, and I blink. The world is coming back to me now, in patterns of dust and stone, and it seems this was all for nought if Tom rejects what I have discovered.

"Are you really better than everyone, Gin?" asks Tom, not sneeringly, but genuinely concerned, truth-seeking.

"No," I admit, and the heat comes back. I shift my gaze down to the cloudy region near my feet, then with a new rush of strength up into Tom's ever-black eyes. "_But I can be_."

"Ah," says Tom, as if the thought is newly dawning on him.

"No," I say, "_But I will be_."

"Well then," says Tom, and abruptly releases my chin. I blink, and the world comes rushing back, and yet I am not sure where I am. "I'll accept that, Ginny. You've the right spirit, and a good soul."

I flush with pleasure, but feel the childishness of the reaction. "I don't need you to flatter me, Tom," I say.

He laughs, genuinely in delight. It is something he would have said. Or something he would have said had he been me, in my position, being flattered by another Ginny. But beyond that he seems to forget what we were saying.

"Come with me," he says now, offering me his hands, both his hands, so cool and white and offered right to mine.

"Where?" I ask, somewhat wary but blushing – yes, blushing now – when my eyes meet his.

"Come with me." Such a friendly gesture, such a wonderful smile, those hands held warmly out to me.

"Where?" I ask. He never answers.

"Come with me."

– Well, obviously I went with him; the story's gotten rather famous by this point, hasn't it?


	3. Retracing

That's the first "one point" that comes to mind, but it's definitely not _the_ one point. My choice to follow Tom Riddle that day wasn't an aberrant foolish decision. He was someone I trusted, someone I knew, someone I loved I would even say.

– concern, concern. I should've expected it, I guess. Oh, go ahead and purse your lips, there's no reason not to. I know at this point you're wondering _why _I loved him, maybe even howI could. You want to know _why_ I felt the way I did about someone I knew for nearly a year and talked with every day? The reasons run into each other. My memory is colored with them, the countless feelings and intents passed back and forth between pens over many months.

– Actually, now that you mention it, there is one conversation…

_

* * *

_

_Dear diary_, I write. Blue ink looking crisp because it's on creamy paper, the words standing out for a moment from, and then fading into, the off-white. Just like they have before. I'm beginning to get used to it, but for now I still must pause to marvel at the beauty of it. Now etchings are appearing in the off-white, red scratches, forming words that I can read a second later_: I assume you're trying to anger me, Ginny, using that phrase after I've finally broken you of the habit_. I smile, not without some satisfaction. I've annoyed him.

_Broken me of it?_ I write again. _I don't think so._

_You're a pest,_ says Tom, in rankly handwriting that seems to convey his emotions just like he's in front of me.

Shut up, I say, and now I'm really smiling.

_My observation is confirmed_, writes Tom. What's your problem, he asks. I don't have a problem, I say. But apparently _you_ do.

There's something bothering you, Ginny. You're trying to pick an argument with me, God knows why, maybe just because I'm the most convenient person to argue with.

I'm not trying to pick a fight. And there's nothing bothering me.

Not fight – _argument_. There's a difference. Arguments can be fun. Fights can't. And don't even pretend there's nothing bothering you, because it's obvious.

You know everything, apparently.

There's a reason this is called a "diary," Ginny. Are you going to tell me what's wrong?

I thought you didn't want me to call you a diary.

_I am a diary_, he says, and the ink is redder, the handwriting ranklier, by this point. _I'm here to listen to you, and you're supposed to tell me what's wrong. Think of it as therapy. My _name,_ however, is not "diary" but "Tom."_

_Diary_, I write, and it stands out blue against the cream for a moment or two before fading.

_I'm playing along now,_ says Tom a moment later,_ because obviously you're not in the mood for a real conversation._

My name is _not_ diary.

Diary, diary, diary.

Pest, pest, pest.

Diary, diary, diary, diary.

Little girl, little girl, little girl.

I hesitate. _Shut up,_ I write finally, and I'm not smiling anymore.

Ah. A raw nerve. _Now_ will you talk to me?

Just shut up.

I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, Gin. I'm just trying to find out what's wrong. I'm worried, and I'm even more worried because it sounds like even _you_ don't know what's wrong.

I know myself, thank you _very_ much Tom Riddle.

Finally my name. Ginny, why don't you talk to me? That's what a diary is for. Maybe I can help you.

How?

Write down why you're feeling bad. Then you'll understand it better, and I'll be able to talk to you about it.

_I don't really know what to say,_ I write, and I hesitate. My words are already fading into the page and being replaced by more writing in red –

_Try,_ says Tom, _and maybe I can understand. I'm pretty good at that._

I pause, think through the evening – how to begin? That overarching feeling to the night, that mental image…ridiculous.

_I promise to take you seriously, no matter what you say. It will make sense to me._

That struck a chord in me, cliché as it is to say.

All right, then.

_Nothing is real_, I write, and I lean back from the diary, wondering whether or not that covers the breadth of the evening.

A longer time than usual elapses before Tom writes back, and I lean over the diary page to read his response, heart pounding.

"_Nothing is real." I think that's one of the most interesting things anyone has said to me in a long time. What does it mean?_

I don't know, I say. That was your job to figure out.

I need more to go on, he says.

The world isn't real. Nothing around me is real. Nothing around me really happens. I'm in a little air-bubble.

Kind of like a diary?

I laugh. _Yes_, I write_, like I'm in a diary._ I say, I think there's somebody holding a wand over my life and charming things.

Everything is going wrong?

No, everything is going right.

Everything is going right. How, how to explain it to you, Tom? Everything bad is happening around me, away from me, Harry and Ron almost got expelled tonight, Fred and George made Percy trip and scratch his arm, but me, nothing. I wanted to be in Gryffindor and I got in, did I tell you how much I wanted it, Tom, and another girl, this blonde girl who went into Ravenclaw wanted to be in Gryffindor and she cried, I saw her later, but it worked out for me, like a fairy tale, does that make sense?

A longer pause. _I think I understand, Ginny. No one's ever talked to me about this before. Everything's going right for you, and you're upset because you think you're not facing real life, that you're living in a cushioned world._

Exactly, I say, and begin writing feverishly. It's exactly like I'm in a cushioned world, like a cushioned room or something, I don't have to worry about anything and I don't have to try for anything and it's not…it's not really _real_.

It's not real, and it's not true, he says, you don't think you're getting a glimpse of what is truly true.

Exactly, Tom.

That's intriguing. I've never thought about that before…do you need problems to be a good person?

That sets me aback. _No_, I say after a long pause. _Not to be a good person._

But it bothers you.

It makes me feel weird, yeah.

You need problems, because then you can overcome them and be a real person.

I pause. _Do you think that?_ Half fearful of the answer.

No, that's what you think. That's what your words are screaming at me. You don't think you're getting a chance to be a real, or a good, person and it makes you mad.

Yeah, it does.

You want the chance to be a real person in real life. To make a difference.

_Exactly! _I write, and I grin. I write in a fever, as if I must get the words, the thoughts, out of my head or I will lose them.

That's exactly how I feel, Tom, nothing around me is real and I'm just sort of floating and there's water around me that just absorbs any move I try to make, and nothing's really going to touch me and I can't do anything, I can't make anything change and that's _bad_, Tom, because maybe then I'm…I'm…I don't know why that's bad, Tom, tell me why that's bad.

It's bad because you don't want a watered-down version of reality. And you want to be able to have an effect on the things around you.

Yes!

Because otherwise you're a little girl.

I don't write back. After a few seconds' pause, red ink begins sifting up through the page again, Tom continuing.

_I don't think you're a little girl,_ he says. _I think it's a mark of character that you're worried about this. Most people wouldn't be._

Another pause. _Do you ever feel like the air around you is too thin, like you're having too easy a time moving?_

Yes, I say, and if I could I would shout it. You know how I feel.

_So we have something in common,_ says Tom, and his words come faster now. _I'd never thought of it the way you put it, Ginny, that nothing is real. But sometimes I'll be walking in the halls at school and it's like I'm in a dream, like I can move so gracefully and yet I'm not really making a difference, it's so easy to move everything that I'm not really catching hold of the world, it's just slipping through my fingers like air. _Another pause, and he says_, I would say it happens a lot before tests, but that would trivialize what we've felt._

I laugh. _It would_, I say, but _it would be kind of funny._

_It would_, says Tom, _but let's focus on the serious. We've both been stuck in this situation. Maybe we can figure out how to get out of it._

Maybe if we run into a brick wall really hard.

Yes, or if we run into an emotional brick wall. _Do _you have any problems, Ginny?

Yes, I say hastily, of course. You know Harry hates me.

There you have it.

I bite my lip. _Tom, you always say that Harry _doesn't_ hate me, he just doesn't love me._

_And that's what I still think_, says Tom, _but you're trying to snap yourself out of unreality, so we'd better make the brick wall as hard as possible._

I understand.

So, Harry Potter hates you, Gin. Does that help?

I consider. No, I say. It didn't change anything.

* * *

Don't you see what he meant? Don't you see that we were friends, that we understood each other? Or at least that's the impression Tom always wanted me to have. Looking back I see his subtle manipulations, his flattery in all the right places, that hooked me and brought me further and further in. But even now, when I look back, some conversations give me pause, and this is one of them. Conversations I remember like they were yesterday, because they have meant so much to me. A world of unreality. Air that is too thin.

Don't you know I've used those descriptors ever since, because they still apply to my life? Don't you know that everything Tom ever said to me I still have in my heart – but that's not a good descriptor; no, I still have it in my psyche – that's better, though it means about the same thing as the more clichéd phrase. The right word makes the meaning. Tom's words still pop up in my mind and still matter. When I talk to myself now I become my own Tom.

And yes, that creeps me out big time. Just in case you were wondering.

* * *

I say, I've always wanted to be an only child. I ask, is that bad of me?

It is several seconds before Tom answers.

_There's nothing really wrong about that, Ginny. At least I don't think. People wish that all the time. What worries me is that you wonder whether it's right or wrong._

Why should that be worrisome? Isn't it good that I care?

Of course it's good that you care about right and wrong, but it's only good if what you're worrying about is really valid. If you're making too much of something you shouldn't be worried about, you're just holding yourself back from something that could help you.

Like what?

Namely, thought. If you're afraid to wish that you were an only child then you'll still wish it but you won't think it through, because the thought is "bad." But if you don't worry that the thought is bad, you'll look at it closer. And then you'll see, maybe, _why_ it is you wish you were an only child.

I guess that makes sense. And I know why I want to be an only child, it's so I won't have six brothers hanging around all the time trying to make sure I'm perfectly safe, perfectly good little sister Ginny.

Should I add a mental "Ginny-winny" or "ickle Ginny-kins?"

Yeah, that about covers it. But of course it's wrong to think that because I guess I should actually love my brothers, or something like that.

Should you?

Okay, that was sarcastic. But now you want me to ask myself whether I actually do love my brothers and whether or not it's bad if I don't.

You catch on quick, ickle Ginny-kins.

Okay, I should love them because they're my family and your family is people you're supposed to love. Don't say anything, I know you're going to say _something_.

I trust you to complete that thought later. Do you love them, though?

You know, I really don't know.

Yes you do.

I'm thinking maybe I don't, because I don't really _feel_ anything about them. Can I tell you a secret, Tom?

I think you've done that before, Gin. I'm as safe now as ever.

Okay, then. Sometimes I imagine something horrible happening to my brothers. Not because I want it to, but because I want to imagine how I would feel if it did.

What do you feel?

Nothing.

Interesting.

Isn't that horrible?

I'm not going to pronounce judgment. I suspect you really would miss them if they were gone.

I say that, but I don't really think it.

Is there anyone you would miss?

Not Percy…not Fred…not George…not Ron…Harry I would miss, but not Hermione. I would miss Harry a lot. And of course I'd miss you, Tom.

Why was there an "of course" in front of my name?

It didn't mean anything. I would really really miss you.

Don't dress it up, ickle Ginny-kins. You won't hurt my feelings.

I'm not kidding, Tom, I would miss you. More than my family.

I don't intend to hold you to that. But I would miss you, too, Ginny. An awful lot, even if my name came last on your list.

I'm sorry, it shouldn't have been.

I'm just teasing you, Gin.

Do you ever feel like that about your family, Tom?

Yes, all the time. Especially my father. I _was_ an only child, so there were only me and my parents.

I feel better now.

Good.

Maybe love is just something that is good if it exists, but you can't _make_ it exist if it's not coming naturally.

That makes sense.

I mean, have you ever _tried_ to love someone? Or even to like them? It just doesn't work. But…

Go on.

Maybe your family is just a group of random people that you're born into, that you can't love unless some really special case comes up, and people just say they love their families because it's "bad" if you don't. I mean, people love their friends because they've chosen to spend time with them. People just spend time with their families because they don't know what else to do. Does "family" even mean anything? People _say_ it's special, but I'm not so sure.

Not to interrupt you, Ginny, but this is the most interesting discussion we've ever had, you and I.

Do you agree with me? About families?

I can't say. I wasn't completely honest with you earlier, Ginny. I didn't grow up with my parents. I'm an orphan.

Why did you lie to me?

No "I'm sorry, Tom, that must have been dreadful"?

I'm sorry, Tom, that must have been dreadful. And really I am sorry. But why did you pretend to have parents?

I don't know, maybe I just didn't want to get into it.

You can tell me anything, Tom, I won't think badly of you.

I think that's my line.

Well, maybe I'm _your_ diary. Like you're mine.

Maybe so. Listen, Ginny, why don't you tell me more about your family theory?

* * *

He let me talk, you see. He would listen to whatever I had to say, and he wouldn't bat it down. If you still can't understand it, then imagine having someone who smiles at you and says, "you are incredibly insightful and unique" – in so many words – every time you have a conversation with them. The flattery worked; it was really quite a brilliant campaign he put up. When I look back on it. I didn't even realize what had happened until my third year, can you imagine that, when I was going over the whole experience in my memories. Second year I was still in that "how could I have been so stupid?" phase where the very subject of Tom or the diary was a repelling magnet for my thoughts.

Very much like the "good or bad?" thoughts Tom led me to abandon. "Tom led me"…yes, that's a pretty accurate statement for _all_ of my first year. Tom led me to this, Tom led me to that. Prodding me this direction and that toward a conclusion. Leading me to the thoughts he desired.

It doesn't occur to me to be frightened of his ability. It simply was. Once he'd gotten inside my head, of course he could do whatever he wished. I let him. It doesn't occur to me to be frightened of his ability, even now looking back. Wary lest it happen again, yes. Creeped out big time, yes. But I don't prize my mind so much that I think it is impregnable. No one's mind is impregnable, except maybe Tom's itself.

– the diary. Funny, I was almost getting away from my story. Anyway, Tom became more and more real for me. Until finally, he _was_ real.


	4. Stepping Over

Come with me, he says.

All right, I say. And I slip my hands into his, his cool, white hands so slender and awkward-looking even by themselves, and I feel that he is real.

"Yes, Ginny," says Tom, smiling into my eyes. I feel a flush of heat in my cheeks, but I feel the need to maintain eye contact. To still look into those dark, here, real eyes of his.

"Yes, Ginny," says Tom, "I _am_ real." He winks. "Surprised?"

"Actually, yes," I say. He's leading me out the door, me walking forward, him backward and yet he's not hitting anything. And yet I can't tell if there is anything _for_ him to hit, because everything beyond Tom takes on a fog and I can't focus on it properly. I don't ask where we're going, because if Tom were going to tell me, he would have already.

"Aren't you afraid you'll hit something?" I ask Tom.

"Not especially," says Tom, smiling at me again. The smile is ever-present, a little light in his eyes, an affectionate and knowing look with his head cocked to one side slightly. No, I didn't ask him why not, and I didn't ask him where we were going, and I didn't ask anything really. Why? Maybe I was afraid of the answer. He didn't volunteer the information either. I knew he was probably leading me to somewhere I didn't want to go. He knew I knew it.

Why did I go? How can you even ask me that? Haven't you been paying attention? I was bound to go, as surely as I'm bound to ponder over it even now and try to figure out why I did the things I did. Here's one thing I already know: I was bound to go with Tom once I'd taken his hands, and nothing changed that.

Tom leads me further, and the fog behind him and around us grows darker. Tom drops one of my hands and turns around to lead me facing forward, with a backward glance and a wink.

"I like it when you wink," I say. "It fits your personality exactly."

Tom laughs. "That's a funny thing to say. I was just thinking that I like it when you blush. That's you all over: you feel something but you're ashamed of it. But it's so endearing at the same time." I'm flushing over again, proving his point.

"There you go, proving my point," says Tom with another backward glance, like he knows I am blushing without looking. At the time it makes sense that he knows. Tom knows everything about me.

"Why are you here today?" I ask Tom. I don't really expect an answer.

"Why should I tell you?" asks Tom.

"Because I want to know," I say.

"Bullshit," says Tom. "You're asking a rhetorical question. You don't want an answer, you just want to waste sound."

"You know, it gets annoying after a while, this 'I know everything about you' thing."

"Should I fake ignorance? Should I lie?"

I roll my eyes, feeling somewhat vindicated. "Now who's wasting sound?"

"Now who still feels the _need_ to waste sound?"

"Why _should_ we have to waste sound?" I say. "Why doesn't this feel comfortable? We've always been friends, Tom…"

"I'm not sure, Ginny," says Tom, sounding truly pained. "All I can think is that things change when one friend flushes the other down a toilet. If that sounds familiar."

This is the first time he has brought this up, the first time I know for sure that he is aware of my attempted murder. I don't say anything for a few minutes. There is nothing I _can_ say, as I follow silently behind Tom through this fog of swirling darkness. How to defend myself, to explain to him that I suspect him of taking my sanity? How to deny the charges, when they are true and moreover when my silence is testimony enough? How to explain why I am still following him, obediently like a dog, into this swirling void of I-know-not-where?

"I'm sorry," I say.

"Inadequate," says the voice that is either Tom or the back of my mind, and probably both.

"Well, maybe I love you," I say. Tom stops, completely stops walking, turns around and looks at me. He flings down my hand, so violently that it stings in the far distance that is my body.

Go back, he says.

No, I say, and now I find that I _can _talk.

So maybe I flushed you down the toilet. So maybe I tried to get rid of you. So maybe I'm afraid of you. But I'm not going anywhere but where you're going.

Interesting, but you don't mean it.

I swear it, Tom, and it doesn't matter what you say, even if your rejection is like a wound to the heart. Even if I'm blubbering everywhere, making a fool of myself – I stay where you stay.

No, Ginny – you don't. Go back, Ginny – what do you want with me? My world is completely foreign to you.

Your world is my world.

Go back to your friends, your familiar thought-idols.

Your friends are my friends, and your gods are my gods.

You don't mean that.

I mean to die where you die – do you understand that, Tom?

"You can't!" I exclaim, pulling myself out, of what I don't know. "So I tried to get rid of you! Well, maybe I can't go through with it. Well, maybe I need you, and maybe I really mean what I say. This is _right_, Tom, me coming with you is _right_, and I _am_ coming, whether I have your 'permission' or not."

Tom steps back for a moment, eyes calculating; then his face breaks out in a smile. I'm not too far gone to notice that the smile is distinctly fanged.

"Let's go, then," says Tom, taking my hand again.

"Where?" I ask. "What are we doing?"

"We're dimension-hopping," says Tom. "We're defying the fourth dimension. We're stepping outside of time."

"I think I knew that already."

"You did. I made sure of it, ickle Ginny-kins."

I am beyond fear, in a swirling void that encloses all but Tom and so far from my own body that it might as well be a point of light at the end of a long, gray tunnel.

Your people are my people. Your gods are my gods. Where you die, I die.

Stepping out of time means you never die.

How did I reconcile the two realities I held in my mind? How did I completely trust him and completely doubt his intentions at the same time?

…sure, the possession spell is as good an explanation as any. We'll use that as a fallback. I have more faith than that, though, in the erratic nature of my mindleft all toits lonesome.

* * *

You've been writing so often lately, Ginny. Dozens of pages in a day, I would guess.

Is there a problem with that? Am I taking too much of your time?

No, of course not. I've rather enjoyed it. I'm just making an observation.

I guess I've had more to write about lately.

I guess so. You haven't mentioned Harry Potter in days.

I guess I haven't. It's funny, I've still been thinking about him just as much. But I'm really considering something.

What?

If Harry weren't handsome, and weren't famous, I wouldn't be in love with him.

Probably not. But it's only natural.

How shallow of me.

So you're worried about your standards.

I should love a person for their personality. I should love for what's on the inside, because that's really _them_. Not their face.

Or their name.

Or their name, unless they earned it.

An interesting qualification.

I have a lot of respect for fame or glory if it's earned.

Is Harry's?

Probably, but not the greater part of it. I have no name.

That's what really bothers you.

That and other things. But mostly that. Well, and I'm shallow. I'm so silly, really. Love should be more like – more like us, Tom.

I agree.

Me too. Of course, I said it first, so technically I don't need to agree.

I'll let you, Gin.

* * *

Do you know why you're special, Tom?

Why?

Because I have a name with you.

Even if it's 'ickle Ginny-kins'?

Yes. Because I know you don't mean that. We each have names with each other, even if no one else knows our names.

You know what having a name means, don't you?

I think so, but you've probably got a better idea.

It means stepping outside of time.

Interesting.

It means never dying.

That makes sense.

It means being important.

It means never having too-thin air.

Exactly, Gin.

You understand everything.

I want a name with everyone else, the whole world.

Me too.

* * *

The gray fog is black fog now, black on blacker. The fact that it was once gray registers in the back of my mind, but there's no way to reconcile the realities. Anything that is just is. And if it is, then I'm walking through it, and if I'm walking through it, then Tom is leading me by the hand. Tom is leading me by the hand. I don't know what this fact is supposed to register, if it's supposed to register anything at all.

I give up, I say.

No need, says Tom. We're nearly there. You've been a good girl, says Tom.

Shut up, I say. You know I hate you making fun of me.

Just write what I tell you to, says Tom.

Black on blacker fog, this fact doesn't register, Tom is leading me by the far-away pinprick of light that is my hand, or something that encompasses my hand…

Just write it, says Tom.

Non-sequitur.

I give up, I say.

But you're doing beautifully, says Tom.

I don't like this, I say. Give me a sense of where I am.

You don't need one.

But I want one.

But you promised to follow me no matter what.

Tom doesn't give me any sense of where or when or how. If I had eyes I would cry, but I don't think I have them. Then again I don't think I have a brain either, so I don't know how I'm thinking that I don't have eyes to cry with when I don't think I have a brain to think that I don't have eyes to –

I give up, I say. Tell me the answer.

What?

Exactly. Please.

I don't know what you're talking about. Let's go.

I'm not talking.

Sure you are. Let's go.

Why?

Silly question.

What, why?

A why is rarely ever a _why_, Ginny, it's a cleverly disguised _what_.

What do you want me to do wherever we're going?

That's more like it. You're a quick learner.

What?

Help me.

Why?

He sighs. He says, I'll tell you when you're older.

I give up. Just tell me the answer, please.

I think, I don't think there is an answer. The Tom-presence holding what used to be my hand doesn't contradict me.


	5. Realization

Before my first year at Hogwarts, before I even found Tom, I went with my parents and brothers to buy school supplies one afternoon. We went with Harry Potter. In the shop, something or other happened – I forget exactly what at the moment – but Draco Malfoy ended up confronting Harry over how famous he was. Oh, wait. I remember. Gilderoy Lockhart. Pulling Harry into his little time-bubble.

Gilderoy Lockhart. A waste of the fourth dimension.

It was the first time I had ever seen Draco Malfoy, and I knew right away that he was exactly like me. Let me back up. I knew right away from looking at him that he was rich, because of his expensive robes, and I knew once he'd opened his mouth that he was an arse of the worst kind. Self-flattery here.

Still, he said exactly what I'd been thinking. Sure, I loved Harry back then, but Harry getting sucked into that man – Lockhart's – little fame-bubble was too much. Harry didn't deserve it. Lockhart didn't either, but I wasn't to find that out until later. So as much as I was proud of Harry I resented him.

And as much as I resented Harry, Draco Malfoy accosted him. Angry kid. I almost appreciated it. I didn't understand why at the time, as I fancy I do now. Draco Malfoy, ambitious Slytherin that he was, outshone by Harry Potter simply by the effort of _showing up_ on Harry's part. Time-grappler Draco steals the limelight.

"Leave him alone," I shouted at Draco. "He didn't want any of that." I assumed that I was telling the truth, and now I'm pretty sure that I was.

"Leave him alone." Time-grappler Ginny, who hasn't yet realized what she's trying to do, takes over.

Draco gave me a look of pure contempt. "Oh look, Potter," he drawled, and I'll never forget it – "oh look, Potter – you've got yourself a _girlfriend_."

Laughter. Well, actually, I can't remember whether there was any laughter or not. There probably wasn't, because I think the only people within earshot were Draco, Harry, and my brothers. But my mind supplied the laughter, as my cheeks went hot and my eyes went red and then misty.

It sucks, the first time you have outside confirmation of how trivial you are. Standing up for my famous crush. Little girlfriend to the rescue. Little girl without a name. Wasn't Harry glad I decided to come along that day. And all that jazz.

I found Tom in my cauldron later that afternoon.

* * *

We're nearly there, says Tom.

I give up, I say. I ask, where are we supposed to be?

Black on blacker, the fog goes swirling on; it could be poetic if I were in the right mindset. I don't think I'm in a mindset. You need a mind for that. There's a tugging on the far-distant pinprick that is my body, the far-distant hand that I somehow know is nestled inside Tom's larger hand. Tom is large – as big as the universe – and he's the only thing I can see except for centuries and centuries of black on blacker fog. Miles and miles of wasteland.

Does anything look familiar?

I can't think why it would, then again I can't think anything.

Anything at all?

Only Tom, only the fog, only the wasteland.

Only?

In the sense that that's all I see.

It's not enough?

Enough? No, no, it's not enough. I need more. What more? I'm not sure. I think I need a name.

But we're doing that. We're getting a name. We're stepping out of the fourth dimension.

I don't know who I am anymore. If I am anyone. You need to know who you are to have a name.

But we're stepping out of time.

But maybe us stepping out of time isn't enough. Maybe this isn't something you can do as a _we_. Maybe you need to do it as an _I_. I don't think I can do this as a we.

But you made an oath.

But I didn't know what I was saying.

But you swore a solemn oath.

I meant to stay with you forever. Not be eclipsed by you.

Same thing, dearheart.

I meant to know you and be with you forever, not to cease being myself.

The more I know you the less you become yourself. The less unique, the less sovereign, you become. This is the natural progression of your oath.

I give up. Just tell me the answer.

I just did.

I give up. It doesn't make any sense.

It's not supposed to.

Black on blacker fog and it's cold now. It hasn't been cold, or hot, or really anything sensory for so long. Now it's cold, and black, the centuries and the miles laid out before me. And Tom laid out beside me. No. I am the one laid out, looking upwards, and the black fog swirls and parts for what feels like it should be a brief moment.

Where are we?

Don't you recognize it?

How could I? Uneasiness, and trying to conceal the uneasiness is like trying to conceal the fact that I exist.

You've been here before, little Ginny.

I thought so. Really I don't, I just feel so. Tom often doesn't make that distinction.

I'm too into self-honesty.

For your own good.

It is for your own good.

That's not what I meant.

I don't understand you, little girl. If you're going to have anything to crow about in these next few minutes, it's this: still, after months and months of getting to know you, you manage to baffle me every once in a while.

What are you talking about, Tom?

I'm talking about this, Ginny: the more I know you the less of yourself you become. The more of a name _we_ get, the less of a name _you_ get. That's reality.

It's not right, Tom.

So you don't contest it.

It's not right.

It's a fact. Right and wrong are irrelevant to facts. History happens, reality unfolds, and facts just _are_. I know it. You know it. I know you know it. The universe doesn't listen to our little pleas about what's _right and wrong_. Bloody hell, people _themselves_, even though people have invented the concepts, hardly ever listen to them. It's simple enough for a child to grasp, Ginny. You have the facts, and you have the rightness or wrongness that we attach to them after the facts. After all the effects are accomplished. Right and wrong are things we color history with to make ourselves look right. To show that we are good.

You used to worry about right and wrong, Ginny. Especially when it came to your internal feelings, your internal value judgments. You used to worry that you were a bad person. No one is a "bad person," Ginny. No one is a "good person" either, unless they so christen themselves. And there are more of those than you'd be willing to stomach.

It's all facts. It's all reality. What is real? Power is real. Power of money, power of influence, power of strength, power of magic. Power of unpredictability. And what does power get you? It gets you more power. It gets you a name. It gets you out of time.

It makes you immortal.

There's nothing right and wrong, Ginny – contradict me if you will – there's only power. Some people grasp for power and can't get it. They are the weak. They are the trivial, the ineffectual. Some people never want power – they are the weak and the stupid. Some people actually manage to grasp power, and they are the good people. If there's such a thing as good people. They are the ones that history, as well as their own internal judgment, pronounces good.

Disagree if you will. I am right, and you know it. I know it. You know that I know that…

I'm feeling uneasy, but vaguely so. The black fog swirls back again, centuries of the stuff, and the cold retreats to the far distance that is my body. The uneasiness retreats to the far distance that is my soul. I am touching nothing, save for the black fog, and even it isn't touching me but rushing off to touch Tom. And then I can't even see Tom.

It occurs to me to wonder, vaguely, without the hurry that is impossible without a body and the anxiety that is impossible without a soul, if this is how I am going to die.

Even the pain of erasure is muted, sounding tremulous and distant from the far-off pinprick of gray that is my soul.


	6. Freefall

That's all I can tell you about the Chamber of Secrets. When I wake up next it's the indoors, the underground equivalent of a clear morning, and Harry Potter is sitting next to me, looking utterly exhausted. Covered in dew, is my first thought. I look at him for a minute, wondering where Tom is. Tom. Fog. Words in the wasteland.

Schoolgirl.

Trivial.

The stuff Harry is covered in isn't dew. It's –

Magnetic repulsion.

Tom used me.

Stupid girl.

_Foolish_.

I let Tom use me.

I almost caused…

Just a friend…

_I'm going to be expelled_. I'm not proud, you understand, that this was my first thought upon having the reality heaped on me, upon realizing who my beloved Tom was, upon realizing the extent to which I was nothing but a foolish little girl. Call it a defense mechanism. Worry about something else that's less pressing.

Idiot.

No, expelled.

Foolish.

No, expelled.

_No, not expelled._

At times in those next few days I sometimes wished I _had_ been punished. There was nothing to think about except for Tom, and my – my _silliness_ – and Harry, and…I almost wished I had been the one doing the attacks – I mean, that it wasn't just my body under Tom's control. Being a monster is better in many ways than being a dupe. Evilness is better than silliness. Triviality. I wished that. I wondered about doing something awful to Harry, to Hermione, to Madame Pomfrey – but then I realized that I didn't know anything awful to do to them. And I was too afraid.

– It helps to talk about it in past tense. That's all I did second year. It wasn't until third year that I would even _consider_ the subject of Tom, of what I had learned, without it becoming a repelling magnet for my thoughts.

And my third year Tom came back. No, not to me, silly – stop looking so frightened. I mean Voldemort came back, at the end of the year. Triwizard Tournament, Cedric Diggory, Harry…you know the story. Everyone knows the story.

I can't help but wonder if it means anything. But it probably doesn't. It's probably just a fact, and I'm trying to add that extra layer to it.

– yes, Tom's insights. Sometimes they're valid.

And no, I don't want to do anything awful to Harry, or to Hermione, or to Madame Pomfrey, or even to Snape, which is the more relevant question. Just kidding. A joke. You can let me joke about this, right? And no, I don't think Voldemort is…well, in his own defense he would claim that he isn't right or good. He just is. But he would be lying.

He says he's rejected morality. He says he is independent of it. He's a bloody liar. He's just adapted a code of morality that goes along with his values – the weak and the stupid are wrong. The strong are right. He is right. I do the same thing. So do you. We all have our unconscious judgments. We can't get rid of the judgments. They are us. But the thing is we realize the tricks our own soul is playing on us.

I wonder if Voldemort even realizes them. It's ironic, because if he doesn't, then by his own standards he is wrong, bad, evil even. If he can't step back and look at himself and abandon those pesky ideas of right and wrong – and whatever other bloody emotional hogwash he's carrying – you get the picture. He'll never be immortal, even if he physically never dies. He's trivial.

Not that I can say much more about myself. I wonder at the changes I've gone through since my third year. Self-consciously, I might add. I've become, more and more, and what's even better I've done it by design – I've become more and more like Draco Malfoy.

– well, I'm flattered, but no, I'm no nicer than Draco. I've just got tact and Draco hasn't, so that you can't tell either way. But we're after the same thing, him and I. And we've got about the same obstacles in our paths. The only difference lies in the ways in which we go about grasping at what we want. That's the only difference. Is one of us right and the other wrong? I personally dislike him with passion. But as for nice and mean, right and wrong, I'm up in the air.

– Tom? – was I _talking_ about Tom? Was I talking about Voldemort? I was talking about Draco Malfoy, the boy who thinks he _is_ Voldemort himself, but no.

Well, have I answered your question now? Have I given you the what? The why?

…you give up? Tell you the answer? Ha hah! Sweetheart, if I _had_ the answer…do you even know the question?

– yes, I think it's cold out here, too. Let's go inside.


End file.
